Research On The Learning Needs Of The Second Foreign Language Teachers In Their Initial Career Cycle

A teacher's learning is an important channel to bring about advance in his or her own professional development. To analyze the learning needs for a teacher who is in initial vocational period and to provide proper instructions will benefit one's adapting to teaching career much faster and better, and transition to professional type as well. This thesis is intended for second foreign language teachers, a relatively special group in university. At present, the specialized research on them is just in its beginning stage in our country. Through analyzing the learning needs in their initial vocational period, this essay is aimed to provide second foreign language teachers with learning suggestions, and to make them realize their own professional development better.Document analysis and case analysis are applied here. Having consulted relevant documents and made a careful study of the researches on learning theories and the knowledge structure of teachers and foreign language teachers, the author of this thesis proposes the hypothesis of ideal knowledge structure of second foreign language teachers in universities and colleges, analyzes the characters of the teachers who are in early vocational stage in the light of the theory of teacher's vocational development stages, and then predicts their learning needs and lays down an interview outline. Having interviewed three second foreign language teachers who work on campus for many times, the author makes the qualitative analysis on the data and compares it with the prediction.The result turns out that second foreign language teachers have learning needs relating to both being professional foreign language teachers and the characteristics of second language subject. The former one includes educational basic knowledge (covering newly emerging curriculum knowledge, educational psychology and other frontier disciplines) and cultural knowledge as language background. The later one means the knowledge about the foreign language that their students major in. Meanwhile, second foreign language teachers tend to neglect professional knowledge and skills, thus the learning needs of professional knowledge is affected. Through further analysis, the author finds out that their immaturity of learning view and the lack of professional environment make them beset with difficulties on improving themselves in professional learning and development.In order to improve the quality of second foreign language education, first of all, our country and universities should provide conditions for teachers'development. What's even more important is that second foreign language teachers should realize what kind of knowledge structure they are supposed to have, master various effective learning methods, give consideration to both theory and practice, and improve their own ability of learning and teaching when improving their academic credentials.